MMCA 국립현대미술관 National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea

Prints, Printmaking, Graphic Art attempts to expand mediums and strengthen the balance between genres. The exhibition sheds light on Korean contemporary print, a genre that needs to be rediscovered in the flow of Korean art history. With its long past, print in Korea has always been assessed as a discipline with unique characteristics, particularly from the 1960s to the 90s when diverse printmaking methods and techniques of the genre were developed and printmaking began to be celebrated as a dynamic, experimental medium. However, it is also undeniable that in the flood of other mediums and fields of contemporary art such as media art and interdisciplinary art in 2000s, Korean contemporary print has been losing its footing. This exhibition brings together works by artists who mainly work with the print medium, and sheds an intensive light on 'print' as a special genre, medium, concept and situation.
Prints, Printmaking, Graphic Art largely consists of 4 sections: 'Book store,' 'Street,' 'Studio' and 'Platform.' Borrowing the terms and traits of places we are familiar with in our surrounding, the exhibition looks at the past and future of print through the concept of space. Meanwhile, the title of the exhibition attempts to capture the unique nature of plurality in printmaking. It also reflects the intention of the exhibition to focus on and explore print, a medium that's universal yet comparatively unfamiliar to most, a medium with its own matchless allure, and a medium that will continue to develop through artistic concepts and techniques. The exhibition hopes to reconfirm the values of printmaking as a genre, and to form an expansive bond of understanding to continue to explore the possibility of a genre that's often alienated.